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Everlife

Review

EVERLIFE is the final book in the Everlife trilogy by Gena Showalter. I previously reviewed books one and two, FIRSTLIFE and LIFEBLOOD, for Teenreads. The author has also written the Alice in Zombieland series.

This review will contain spoilers for previous books.

EVERLIFE takes place in an alternate reality from our own. In this world, before you die, you have to choose where you will go afterwards. You can either go to Troika or Myriad. Both realms are ruled by SecondKings, sons of the FirstKing. Troika runs on light, whereas Myriad runs on shadows. If you remain unsigned to an afterlife when you die, you are taken the realm known as Many Ends. Not much is known about Many Ends, other than that it is horrible. Some people don’t even believe it exists.

"I have loved Ten’s character since the beginning, and she has grown into an amazing person by EVERLIFE."

The main character of the Everlife trilogy is Tenley “Ten” Lockwood. She begins the series locked in an asylum because she won’t sign with Myriad like her parents. There, she meets a soul named Killian, who she falls in love with over the course of the books. By the end of FIRSTLIFE, Ten has died and pledged her Secondlife to Troika. Book two continues this adventure, with Ten learning how to use her special abilities to create light. She is thought to be the savior of the world, if only she can learn how to use her abilities. Ten goes through many trials in LIFEBLOOD, but she also has many victories. She gets to meet deceased family members who she’d never met before. Plus, she and Killian have fallen in love. At the end of the book, they plan to bond together, which is like marriage in the Secondlife. This leads right in to EVERLIFE.

EVERLIFE begins with Ten and Killian’s bonding ceremony, but their plans quickly go awry. I won’t spoil what happens next, but a ton of stuff does. There are kidnappings, removing of hands, murders and more!

I have loved Ten’s character since the beginning, and she has grown into an amazing person by EVERLIFE. She is incredibly brave and willing to do things no one else is, even if she’s not always sure how she’ll handle it. She has a way with numbers that I adore. I feel like if I met her, we would be great friends.

One thing that rubbed me the wrong way was that EVERLIFE had a bit of a religious undertone. It wasn’t super strong, but it was definitely there. This didn’t surprise me too much, given content in the previous books, but I felt like the book would’ve been fine without it. That said, that was my only sizable complaint.

I would recommend EVERLIFE, and the entire trilogy, to fans of paranormal romance. If you’ve liked books such as VAMPIRE ACADEMY or ALICE IN ZOMBIELAND, this series is for you! And now that they’re all out, it is the perfect time to binge-read them all! They are super-fast reads that you could get through in an afternoon!